Heart Rate Trackers and Training

[ryanryu]

I wanted to share a little experiment I've been running to see what others think.

A few months ago I got a chest-strap heart rate monitor. It syncs to my phone and I've been wearing it for a variety of workouts. I originally got it because I was trying to do more aerobic exercise - longer durations where my HR was elevated and relatively steady. My preferred workouts (karate, heavy bag, lifting) don't really require that type of performance. For the pictures below, the color bands are % of heart rate max - 60%HRmax is blue, 90% HRmax is red. All these workouts were about 30 minutes, the vertical lines are roughly every 5 minutes. My screenshots cut off the number labels.

Anyway, mission accomplished on the jogging ^^ You can see the jogging profile is relatively flat. I didn't do much of a warmup for this workout but had a nice long cool down at the end.

^^ Here's a kata workout I did one day. I wish I took better notes on what I did, but clearly a long warmup. Probably stretches and kihon. The sawtooth peaks and valleys in the middle are what the kata look like... I see at least 4 separate kata, but I can't remember what that last plateau was. Suparenpei? Wanshu? That's a really long time to be working that hard...

 

^^ Here is where it gets interesting. This was a workout where I was hitting the heavy bag. Ignore the parts where the sensor glitched. I usually do "rounds" of combinations for this type of workout - 1 minute on the bag, 1 minute off, with a recovery every few minutes. I use the early rounds to warm up and the later rounds to really hit hard. So it's a slow rise in intensity overall, with a broader spread for each "round" compared to those sharp kata HR peaks. The amount of time I spend at > 80% HRmax is actually pretty much the same for this bag workout as for the jogging workout. 

^^ This last one was also interesting. This was a kobudo workout where I was practicing bo and eiku. Both weapons kata are very long and both weapons are quite heavy. I think that's why the heart rate peaks are broader than when I did empty-hand kata. Probably also why the peak-to-trough is deeper than kata as well. The kobudo workout also puts me into the highest HR for the longest time, although I think I could get there on the bag too. It is tough for me to get that intensity on the treadmill though.

So after looking at this, can you fault me for not enjoying jogging that much? What a boring workout... I think it's also pretty clear that jogging probably won't improve my kata that much. Totally different demands on the body.

I'll keep using the HR monitor. I'm very curious about if certain kata make my heart beat in the same way every repetition. You can kind of see that in the kobudo chart - the first peak that gets into the red is the same kata as the second-to-last peak, the 2nd peak that gets into the red is the same eiku kata as the final peak... maybe I'm seeing things? But this seems like an interesting way to measure kata performance.

Anyway, thought this forum might find some interest in this too!

 

[bushido_man96]

Pretty interesting.  It's good to get data on things over time.  I don't blame you for not wanting to jog.  It is boring, and it does suck.  I'd much rather do forms/hyungs for an hour than jog.  Have you had any opportunity to wear that thing while sparring to see what that data looks like?  It'd be interesting to see.

[ryanryu]

Oh that's a great idea! The sensor hasn't really shifted much during solo drills - part of why I went with the chest strap - so I think it should stay in place during a sparring round. Assuming I don't get hit, I guess. I'll post that reading when I can.

[sensei8]

Not sure if that monitor can be worn during sparring because the darn thing will flop all around and the sensors might fall off you, if your heart monitor is anything like the ones I’ve worn. 

I guess you could wrap an ace bandage around your body to include the monitor and 3 sensors in order to keep everything securely to your body. Don’t know how the monitor would react to being hit during sparring.

I suppose nothing ventured nothing gained.

Perhaps some light sparring without the need for the intensity; concentrating on technique. Get your doctor to approve you sparring while wearing your heart monitor because the reasons for wearing the monitor might not allow vigorous activity. My doctor told me to not do any sparring at all and each time I wore a heart monitor I wore it for 24 hours, not so bad, but the 72 hours drove me crazy!!

Just talk to your doctor first before you start doing any sparring!!